Families of Kursk victims gather to mark anniversary of disaster

Posted: Sunday, August 12, 2001

MURMANSK, Russia (AP) - Families of the 118 men killed when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea gathered in a rainy, northern Russian port Saturday for a grim pilgrimage to the doomed boat's home base.

Several memorial events were scheduled for Sunday's one-year anniversary of the sinking, with the main service to be held in the closed city of Vidyayevo, where the Kursk sailors were based. "It is not easy losing your son. The pain will be with us for the rest of our lives," Nadezhda Neustroyeva said as she clutched her hands between her legs and fought back tears of mourning for her son Alexander.

Under a chilly drizzle, Neustroyeva and other mothers, fathers, widows and children of Kursk victims pulled in to the train station in Murmansk, then boarded a bus for Vidyayevo. A small, somber ceremony was held Saturday at a high school in Vidyayevo that eight of the Kursk sailors had attended. A memorial plaque engraved with the men's names was unveiled, Russian news reports said. Another memorial service was held Saturday evening in Moscow's St. John the Warrior, one of the capital's most striking and well-known churches.

A costly international operation is underway to raise most of the Kursk's wreckage in mid-September, which Russian officials say could shed light on the disaster's cause. They also say it could comfort relatives by bringing the bodies from the sea bottom, though many relatives have said the submarine should be left alone.

Yelena Kolovanova, whose brother Mikhail Radionov was aboard the Kursk, said she supported the raising operation, but opposed the Navy's plan to cut off the severely mangled fore section of the ship and leave it on the sea floor. "If the fore section is not raised, we will never know what caused it," she said before boarding the bus to Vidyayevo.

Russian officials say the fore section may contain unexploded torpedoes that make lifting it too dangerous. But under pressure from critics who say the front section holds the main clues to what went wrong Aug. 12, 2000, officials have suggested the section could be raised separately at some future date.